I was born under the sign "Obstetrics"

The iPad – Not perfect. Here’s why.

In and amongst the fevered pro-iPad ravings today, I thought I’d throw a bit of a wrench in the works, as I’m not of the opinion that the thing is all it could have been. Mind you, I’m definitely pro-iPad, I think it’s a great device, I just think it could have been a lot better.

With that in mind, here are some things I really think can be done better:
The iPad’s 3G support is artificially limited to AT&T. The thing is, AT&T has lousy coverage, which I can attest to, as it has zero coverage here. Would have been lovely if you could have contracted for data with your actual 3G provider. I understand Apple and AT&T are feeling around in each other’s pants, but it’s the experience of the consumer that’s at issue here for me.

The iPad’s display resolution requires significantly degrading 720p HD; it should have been 1280 by 960 for that reason, and also because that would have kept the same DPI as the iPod, which is pretty decent, although even that is outperformed by, for instance, a Motorola Droid. Now, the 4/3 aspect ratio is fine; that’s about paper sizes and I think is entirely appropriate. But if the long-way resolution was 1280, a 1280 x 720 medium-HD image or movie would fit on there perfectly with controls underneath, not to mention subtitles that don’t overlay the picture, etc. 1024 was a very poor choice.

No IR emitter. A what? Your television, surround system, DVD player and many more devices can be controlled by a remote that emits infra-red signals. Such an interface consists, in general, of one transistor, one IR diode, and a hole in the case to send the IR light through. What a great media controller the iPad could have been, putting the likes of Harmony remotes completely to shame. Oh, well.

No front facing camera. There is a world of communications out there that uses webcams; that is, cameras that face the person at the computer. If the iPad had a camera like that, any time it was online, you could web-conference, or you could make podcasts, or just take pictures of your beautiful (and/or goofy) face. Nope. I’ll miss this capability.

No rear facing camera. The iPad would have made a great inventory controller if you could have pointed it at a barcode, and it could have been able to read it. For that matter, applications like Delicious Library allow you to catalog your own library of DVDs, games, books and so forth. Very nice to do this. Unfortunately, you can’t with the current generation of iPad. A real shame. And something that darned near every phone out there already has. What were they thinking? Were they thinking?

No CF/microSD/etc slot. Ouch. If we could expand our storage, then the number of apps would could use expands as well. Plus, we could swap in various movie libraries, music libraries, etc. It’s a doddle, technically, to do this, and very inexpensive… so I rate this a real fail.

No direct USB connection, so camera/drive connection is annoying as well, and for the same reasons. If I’m out in the field with my DSLR, it would be *very* nice to either upload images to look them over on the larger display, or to use the iPad as a tethered USB controller for the camera, with preview, remote focus and remote fire. I can do that with my laptop, but I’m looking for reasons to stop carrying my laptop here.

Uses cables to sync… wifi, duh. here we have this great machine with a superfast radio connection to the host/parent computer (at least 10 Mb/s), and we’re still stuck in the 1980′s cabled world. Cables get tangled. And lost. Plugs wear out. Fail.

Uses cables to charge — a charge pad would have been great here, and they’re really starting to show up a lot. Imagine just setting the iPad down to charge, instead of having to plug it in. As with the computer connection, cables (and chargers) get lost, and connectors wear out. A charging pad would have been a much better way to go.

The iPad’s bezel is simply too large; it makes the iPad bigger to no advantage. I don’t buy the “thumbs go here” argument. I hold the thing from the back, open-handed, sometimes with a finger orthogonal to an edge to stabilize it. If the iPad has to be this size, why can’t I just have 1280×720 resolution, then, instead of this huge, dead black area?

It’s a little heavy. Just a little. I’m of mixed opinions about this, because the reason it is as heavy as it is, is that it has two large batteries in it. I’d probably just smile if there were three of them, but again, the weight… tough call here, but since I have to actually use the thing, I guess having it handle well in my hands is very, very important, and half the lifetime would be ok with me. I wonder if the thing can be modded to use just one battery. An interesting idea, no?

OS limited to no multitasking. I think that’s a serious error. What about messenger type applications, that need to be listening to the network all the time, and react immediately when you get a message. Would have been nice, but not this time around.

512m of non-expandable memory (not storage) is tight for apps+data. This is a different issue than the many GB of storage for your music and videos and apps is; this is operating RAM where the programs need to reside when they’re actually running. You’re not going to be doing a lot of fast image processing on this thing with that kind of configuration, and that’s really too bad, at least in my view.

The curved back — put it on a table, and it’ll rattle around, especially if you try to type on it. Further, there’s no easy way to use your fingertips to grab the back (and this is probably one of the reasons why it has that awful acreage of bezel area.) You should be able to lay it on a table or a flat stand and work with it, and you should be able to hold it safely and steadily in your hand without wrapping your fingers around it. Now, again, I can see why they did this: that curve makes the iPad seem thinner than it actually is, and that’s all warm and fuzzy because people like thin. Thin is in. But I submit to you, dear reader, that functional is more important. And by going with the fat bezel and the curved back, they tossed functionality away for fuzzy and useless feel. If I can’t use it… that’s not good.

So there you have it. Keep in mind that I really like the device. I’m just not in the group of wide-eyed “it’s magic!” Apple worshipers. For the money – which is considerable – I just want the most I can get. I fully expect devices running Android to create competition in most, perhaps all, of these areas, and I hope that’ll motivate Apple to step up where they’ve missed the boat.

4 Comments

Some great points there. And some… not so great. Ram is not an issue when you are dealing with small apps that are designed to run with that amount. Multitasking is this big wish and need for iPhone OS that I really don’t get. This thing is FAST and moving from app to app is probably about as fast as if it were to multitask. Ever try to sync 20 gigs of movies and music wirelessly? Ouch. I like having a charging cable. It’s much easier to charge other places than in my home that way. Car charging, charging in a hotel, in an airport, or while I am using it all much easier with a simple cable than a big inductive charging setup. Too expensive too. I don’t know HOW clear a display/picture needs to be too. that screen is crystal. Images and movies look spectacular. Don’t need an SD card- I have 32GBs of storage and I need another 4? Spit in the ocean.

On the other hand, bezel is a bit too big, its way too heavy for a handheld device and even though EVERY single thing I own has a camera one it, a camera would be a nice addition. I expect a 3rd party dock cam in the future though.

> Ram is not an issue when you are dealing with small apps
> that are designed to run with that amount.

Ah, but RAM *is* an issue if those apps have to multitask, so this is a problem for future capabilities.

> Multitasking is this big wish and need for iPhone OS
> that I really don’t get. This thing is FAST and moving
> from app to app is probably about as fast as if it were
> to multitask.

To the latter, yes. To the former, the reasons it is useful are many; I’ll point out a few. One is IM clients. If the app isn’t running, it can’t catch messages. If the GUI doesn’t allow easy window management, switching to the IM client is also a problem. Another example; there are many ways to monitor your environment. Sound, video (well, if the darned thing had a camera), Internet activity, wifi spectrum activity, acceleration, position, etc. Each of these things (and more) beg for the ability to continuously chart, graph, log, etc. W/o multitasking, you really can’t do it. I can think of some esoteric examples as well. For ham radio, it’d be wonderful to have an app demodulating RTTY, SSTV, CW and so forth in the background. I’d like to be able to monitor the geomagnetic field so I can shoot aurora photos… that’s really an issue with timely notice. And I want to do my own analysis, so I really need an app, not just a “notify” box. Playing music behind other things requires both multitasking and mixing, and the way it works now is kind of a kludge. Anyway, that should suffice to demonstrate there’s more to multitasking than switching between apps.

> Ever try to sync 20 gigs of movies and music wirelessly?

No. But for that, a cable can be plugged in. Most of the time, I’m syncing very little. Further, I’d really like it to “auto-sync” when its charging, during certain time frames. So that it does it, rather than depending on me.

> I like having a charging cable. It’s much easier to charge other
> places than in my home that way. Car charging, charging in a
> hotel, in an airport, or while I am using it all much easier with
> a simple cable than a big inductive charging setup.

I’ll grant you the size issue. Though you’re already carrying the iPad, I doubt the charger would be even that big (because the coils *must* be smaller than the case.)

> Too expensive too. I don’t know HOW clear a display/picture
> needs to be too. that screen is crystal. Images and movies
> look spectacular.

It isn’t about clarity — it’s about *detail*. I have 1080p in my home theater. Trust me, it’s *way* better than 720p. And the iPad isn’t as good as 720p. Therefore, more pixels would be good, if they want me to watch movies on it. I doubt I will, I’m spoiled, frankly.

> Don’t need an SD card- I have 32GBs of storage and I need
> another 4? Spit in the ocean.

The idea of such storage is to do things like load your camera images into it, rather than the main storage, which (presumably) is full of your apps, etc. Likewise recordings could go there, data… it isn’t about augmenting your iPad as much as it is treating other types of data in a different and more portable manner. A concrete example: My camera uses 16GB cards, and I typically load them up with either 40mb or 10mb images. And I do mean *load* to process these, or even to look them over, the ideal case would be pop the card into the side of the iPad, and just have at at. No transfer, no use of memory, etc. That is why such a card would be of great use, like immediately, to me. Others will have similar needs, and video is even more storage hungry than my DSLR.

> On the other hand, bezel is a bit too big, its way too heavy
> for a handheld device and even though EVERY single thing
> I own has a camera one it, a camera would be a nice
> addition. I expect a 3rd party dock cam in the future though.

It actually needds two cameras — one facing each way. One to you for conferencing an so forth, one facing away for recording current events, inventory, etc. And I’ll bet you that a generation or two down the road, that’s what we’ll see.

And no file system so that applications can share data.
I bought an iphone three months ago, it is a wonderful device but it could be much more useful. I think most of the limitations of both ipad and iphone are there just to don’t spoil the laptop market.

Yes, it does seem that there are some artificial limits that definitely create a line where there doesn’t need to be one.

I routinely read with my iPod (still more than the iPad, it’s too large to really be comfortable with in bed) and there’s no reason I couldn’t be looking at almost any document in my computer’s filesystem, but… no connection. I’m no fan of the “no emulation” stance, either — I would *LOVE* to be able to run emulators on the thing. It’s more than powerful enough, no question about it, we’re just seeing another artificial limit.

Add Apple’s “I’m your mommy” censorship stance, and things really begin to get unpleasant. There are days when I want to leave the whole iP*d/iPhone ecology behind, but the damned thing is just so *handy*.

Deb — my SO — has an Android phone, and that thing, while no iPhone yet, is really coming along. Apps we can’t have on the iPod/pad/phone, some really clever ones, too. Don’t think I’m not watching that with a beady little eye.